Bumped from the diaries - ed

Next weekend there will be a conference that is a clarion call to people of faith to renew our strength, commitment, and unity on behalf of religious diversity, social and ecnomic justice -- and the excitement is building in Troy and Albany, New York.  

John Dorhauer, Andrew Weaver, Frederick Clarkson, Harriet Warnock-Graham, Becky Warnock, Steve Clunn, Bill Peltz, Shirley Dyer Byers, Matt Cherry... just a few of the serious  activists who will decend on Carmen's Cuban Cafe Saturday night, February 10th at 7:00 P.M. for a Salon to discuss future strategies and a face to face gathering that is the preliminary event to the public conference on February 11th.  While both go together, the Salon is designed for veteran writers, activists and researchers.  Cost for the conference and salon are $35.00.  Cost for the Conference alone is $10.00.  The $15.00 for the Salon pays for a terrific cuban buffet. Anyone who would like to register for the conference and would like an invitation to the salon can contact me at http://interfaith.swapspace.com  If you list your organization as talk2action and select Andrew's workshop, I'll know that you're referrring to this diary.

Susan Jacoby writes for Newsweek:

Since the beginning of the Bush administration, we have witnessed--and are still witnessing--the reprehensible results, affecting a wide variety of what are literally life-and-death issues, of a governing philosophy that exudes absolute contempt for the separation of church and state.

While this is not so surprising, the following comments are

Promoted from the diaries. -- ed

In the last year on this website I've alluded to a conference I

1. wanted to do (earliest day dreaming stage)
   
2. planned to sell to our New York State Interfaith Alliance (2nd, god, can I really pull this off, stage)
   
3. sold to the Interfaith Alliance (3rd, holy cow, now I really have to do something about this, stage)
   
4. planned, designed and am actually carrying out for the Albany or Capital Region religious community (present, hot damn, this is really going to happen, stage)
   

   My goals for the conference were three. To connect non computer savvy activists and organizers to computer generated information about the religious right; to disperse knowledge about the religious right to the general religious community in the area; and finally, to create a conference that could be duplicated easily other regions.

   The following press release will soon go out to the media

   "Recovering Our Voice" Conference on the Religious Right -
   The National Council of Church's General Secretary to speak

Path to 9/11 the propaganda piece that may or may not air on ABC next Tuesday, is a project of a group I haven't seen mentioned here before, YMAW or Youth With A Mission.  The source behind this pig with lipstick was a mystery till some of us at Kos did a little research into the background of the director, David Cunningham.  

OOooooh Baby, I am SO proud!!!


This week-end, the Episcopalians, the bishops to be precise, just took the battle with the schizmatics (sounds like the name of a band, doesn't it?) to the door of the American Anglican Council and threw down. [Just to refresh, the American Anglican Council is the plant of the Institute on Religion and Democracy inside the Episcopal Church]

I returned 20 minutes ago from a diocesan church leadership workshop for the Episcopal Diocese of Albany.  What I heard and observed there was an Institute of Religion and "Democracy" exhortation.  The bishop used the phrase, One Church, (an IRD phrase) over and over again.  His audience moaned, cried hallalujah, and murmured Amen.  A local leader in the Cusillo movement was given 15 minutes to describe the success of the movement in the New York Capital district. We were sternly warned to pray ceaselessly to keep evil and Satan from entering our churches.

I am a member of the Episcopal Church, one of the mainline churches under attack by a radical right wing  ecumenical organization called the Institute for Religion and Democracy. I recently moved to Troy, New York. part of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany. When the priest of our new perish visited, I was corrected for use of the word, Episcopal, and was told that we are an "Anglican" diocese.  

I was aware that the Bishop of Albany signed an accord in Texas objecting to the installation of a bishop living in an openly gay relationship.  However, being new to the diocese I had no idea how it came to be a such a powerful tool of the Institute of Religion and Democracy.

Since we were birthed out of the Church of England, a brief look at our English history provides an important insight into our present situation and personality.

In the 16th century, from the reign of Henry the VIII through Mary, the Protestant Reformation exacted a bloody toll in England. The political, social and religious fabric of the nation was under enormous pressure. Early in the reign of Elizabeth I, a new direction was charted. Queen Elizabeth refused to take sides in the theological disputes and through acts of Parliament she directed that the unity of the Church of England would be based not on doctrinal conformity (as the Protestants demanded) or on magisterial authority (as the Catholics required), but on a common liturgical worship.

Now that theological broadness is being sorely tested by attempts to impose a religious orthodoxy completely foreign to our common Church of England culture by groups both inside and outside the church. The diocese of which I am currently a member has fallen under the leadership of a rogue bishop who is working diligently to take our diocese out of the Episcopal Church in American along with the money and property that are attached to it. He is one of those wishing to impose orthodoxy on Episcopalians. One way he is subverting the will of the Episcopal church is by changing the rules for selecting a bishop. Another is by forcing the self sorting of candidates for bishop through the questioning process.

Please bear with and read through the following report.  I realize that the details of this diary can leave one glassy eyed, but the links between denominational governing bodies, individual churches and the IRD are rarely obvious or direct. For some time I've known that the Episcopal Diocese of Albany was connected with the IRD but I was damned if I could find the concrete connection.


Yesterday I roamed through the websites of organizations that came up when I googled Diocese of Albany. Finally, after hours of mind numbing reading, the following relationship between the American Anglican Council, (USA), the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), and The Anglican Communion Network (world wide parallel to the AAC) popped!!  The concrete link between the Diocese of Albany and the IRD showed up in the affiliate organizations of the AAC. The IRD is listed as an AAC Affliliate Ministry on the AAC website.  The Diocese of Albany is listed and linked to the AAC as an Affiliate Parish (rather than as an affiliate diocese).  I'm not sure what the politics of that odd affiliation are other than the dust up that occurred when Herzog was forced to resign as an officer of the AAC.

Further investigation mined the following information about one way money is channeled to rogue religious groups.

The Times Union newspaper of Albany, New York on Sunday, February 12, 2006, ran a huge front page article, byline, Marc Parry, regarding questionable use of diocesan funds by the Bishop of Albany, Daniel Herzog.

According to the article, internal debate has revolved for months around outgoing Bishop Daniel Herzog, who is accused by some in his flock of concealing church finances, short-circuiting the election of his successor and sidelining those who clash with his theological beliefs.

Update [2006-2-11 0:2:48 by tikkun]: Up and coming news
Unless a quiet deal is cut, there will be significant breaking news next week of improper use of Diocesan endowment funds in the Episcopal (Anglican) Diocese of Albany. I can't say much more than that right now. Just keep eyes peeled for breaking information.

John Dorhauer, in his diary, Anatomy of an Attack: Part I, began a conversation about churches under attack. In this diary, I continue the conversation.

I am a member of the Episcopal Church, one of the mainline churches under attack by the Institute for Religion and Democracy, frequently called the IRD.

Since we were birthed out of the Church of England, a brief look at our English history provides an important insight into our present situation and personality.

In the 16th century, from the reign of Henry the VIII through Mary, the Protestant Reformation exacted a bloody toll in England. The political, social and religious fabric of the nation was under enormous pressure. Early in the reign of Elizabeth I, a new direction was charted. Queen Elizabeth refused to take sides in the theological disputes and through acts of Parliament she directed that the unity of the Church of England would be based not on doctrinal conformity (as the Protestants demanded) or on magisterial authority (as the Catholics required), but on a common liturgical worship.

Now that theological broadness is being sorely tested by attempts to impose a religious orthodoxy completely foreign to our common Church of England culture by groups both inside and outside the church. The diocese of which I am currently a member has fallen under the leadership of a rogue bishop who is working diligently to take our diocese out of the Episcopal Church in American along with the money and property that are attached to it. He is one of those wishing to impose orthodoxy on Episcopalians. One way he is subverting the will of the Episcopal church is by changing the rules for selecting a bishop. Another is by forcing the self sorting of candidates for bishop through the questioning process.